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Connecting Hasura to a Google Cloud SQL for SQL Server Database

Introduction

This guide explains how to connect a new or existing Google Cloud SQL for SQL Server database to a Hasura instance, either on Hasura Cloud or via one of our self-hosted solutions.

:::info Hasura Cloud vs self-hosting

If you plan on using Hasura Cloud, which we recommend, follow steps 1 and 2 below. If you're self-hosting a Hasura instance and already have a project running, skip to step 3.

:::

Navigate to Hasura Cloud and sign up or log in.

Step 2: Create a Hasura Cloud project {#create-hasura-project-gcp}

On the Hasura Cloud dashboard, create a new project:

After the project is successfully initialized, click on Launch Console to open the Hasura Console in your browser.

On the Hasura Console, navigate to the Data tab and choose Connect Existing Database. Hasura will prompt you for an ODBC URL. We'll grab this after creating our database and then come back here.

Step 3: Create a SQL Server DB on Google Cloud SQL {#create-ms-sql-db-gcp}

:::info Existing database

If you have an existing SQL Server database on GCP, you can skip this step and move on to step 4.

:::

Log into the GCP console.

On the left-side navigation, scroll down to Storage and click on SQL:

On the top, click on Create instance:

Select SQL Server:

Choose an instance ID, as well as a default user password. If required, choose a specific region and zone.

Then click Create.

Step 4: Allow connections to your DB from Hasura {#allow-connections}

We need to allowlist the IP on which Hasura is running to be able to communicate with the database.

On the dashboard of your Google Cloud SQL database instance, on the left sidebar, click on Connections and then the Networking tab. Then, scroll down ot the checkbox Public IP, and click Add a network:

If using Hasura Cloud, from your project's dashboard, copy the Hasura Cloud IP address:

:::info Self-hosted IP addresses

If you're using a self-hosted solution, you'll need to determine the IP address manually depending on your hosting service.

:::

Enter the Hasura IP address that you copied along with a name (e.g., Hasura):

Then click Done and Save.

Step 5: Construct the database connection URL {#construct-db-url-gcp}

The structure of the database connection URL is as follows:

text

Driver={ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server};Server=<server>;Database=<db-name>;UID=<username>;PWD=<password>

username: Google Cloud SQL defaults your sa username to sqlserver. If you have a separate database user, use their username. Otherwise, use sqlserver.
password: If you have a separate database user, use their password. Otherwise, use the password that you chose when creating the database.
server: The public IP can be obtained by clicking on Overview on the left-side navigation and then scrolling down to Connect to this instance:

Step 6: Finish connecting the database

Back on the Hasura Console, enter the database URL that we retrieved in step 5:

Then click Connect Database.

:::info Secrets in env vars

For security reasons, it is recommended to set database URLs as env vars use those to connect to the databases in place of the raw database URLs. This prevents connections strings leaking in plain text via metadata in version control.

:::

Voilà. You are ready to start developing.

Next steps

You can check out our 30-Minute Hasura Basics Course and other GraphQL & Hasura Courses for a more detailed introduction to Hasura.
If using Hasura Cloud, you can also click the gear icon to manage your Hasura Cloud project. (e.g. add collaborators, env vars or custom domains).

:::info MySQL feature support

For more information on which MySQL features we support, check out this page.

:::

Auth Proxy

Google Cloud SQL offers a Cloud SQL Auth proxy that can be used to connect to your database. This is useful if you want to connect to your database from a local machine or a server that doesn't have a public IP address.

To use the Cloud SQL Auth proxy, follow the instructions in the Cloud SQL Auth proxy docs.

Cloud: Using Hasura Cloud with a Google Cloud SQL for SQL Server database